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Quiet US diplomacy gets it done

By Thomas Oliphant, 4/30/2002

WASHINGTON

FOR THOSE who believe history and current reality show that the United States can make the difference at critical moments in the Middle East, last weekend's furious pace of high-level diplomacy was overdue confirmation.

The small breakthrough that is likely to free Yasser Arafat for another chance (possibly his last) to perform like a mature leader came from a US plan. At the key moments, the plan became an agreement because of the repeated intercession of President Bush and his most senior foreign policy advisers.

The Americans' insistence on a fair solution prevailed over the initial opposition of key elements in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's governing coalition in Israel. To help make one sensitive piece of the agreement work, US and British personnel will be available on the ground - albeit more as symbols of the pivotal US position than as peacekeepers.

When people in the region, in Europe, and here argue for a vigorous American role and criticize the Bush administration for the comparative passivity of its behavior over the previous 15 months, the last several days of activity is what they have in mind as a model.

The model guarantees no results, but results of any kind are simply not possible without this level of US activity. With the agreement on Sunday that will ''free'' Arafat for one more chance, you could add the Bush administration to the list of converts to the cause of intense American involvement.

Two lessons, at least, can be learned from the weekend's frenetic course. The first is that much more can be accomplished in private by officials who are shutting up in public. Second, there appears to be a role for Americans on the ground that can be pivotal in arranging agreements and making them work.

When President Bush broke with his past in early April, the first burst of activity was public - symbolized by his repeated, fruitless calls on Sharon to withdraw from the West Bank ''without delay.'' His first initiative - dispatching Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region without a clear mandate but with a sky-high profile - was similarly fruitless, even to the point of backfiring.

By contrast, the countdown to last Sunday's limited agreement occurred entirely in private, where the officials involved on all sides had some room within which to work and where Bush could ease the Israelis over their internal divisions without delivering public demands that painted Sharon into a corner. It was a countdown in private, moreover, that began not in the region but at the president's Texas ranch while he was meeting with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah.

Contrary to initial, hyped reports, there was no Saudi demand that the US confront Israel. Instead, the conversation was based more on an agreement that the stalemate's most important element was the Israeli occupation of Arafat's compound in Ramallah. While the public focus of the Bush-Abdullah conversation was another proposal for overall settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian mess, the private move that proved pivotal, according to US and Saudi officials, was the crown prince's delivery of a proposal to break the key component of the Ramallah stalemate.

Developed by the Palestinians with Saudi guidance, it concerned the six people being detained in the compound that Israel has insisted must be handed over because of their involvement in militant activities in general and last year's murder of Israeli Tourism Minister Reavam Zeevi in particular. The plan, which Bush administration officials quickly responded to positively, involves the jailing of the six under US and British supervision pending a final determination of their status.

Bush and his top advisers then spent the weekend selling the plan to the Israelis. Persistence paid off, with a final presidential phone call to Sharon breaking a 13-13 tie in his Cabinet and resulting in the agreement.

The US and British personnel will not be military, but they will have responsibility for the six Palestinians' detention and security, and as such they will be exposed to danger in whatever remote location in Palestinian territory is selected. This isn't even close to a peacekeeping role envisioned by many for the United States, but it is an important, symbolic breakthrough that underlines the importance of outsiders in giving agreements a chance to work.

It was also noteworthy that despite still another disgusting attack on Israeli civilians in a West Bank settlement while all this sensitive diplomacy was going on, the agreement was not derailed at the last minute.

All this is an example of what it will take both to move toward a cease-fire and beyond that to a resumption of political negotiations. The sine qua non in this process, in addition to compromise, will clearly have to be the United States. Last weekend removed all doubt of that.

Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com.